One World

Die Welt  (the world)

Just a short note today. I have a small request for the people out in the world who have been looking at (and let's hope, reading) this blog and my other two (one inactive!) without leaving even a tiny comment. Go ahead, please tell me what you think! Even a little hello would be nice.
According to google, people from such places as Canada, Germany, the U.S., and Russia visit my site. I am really curious about the readers from non-English-speaking nations - and thrilled to see this "fan base."
I would be pleased to write back with book suggestions, travel advice, etc.
I will never visit Russia, Israel, India, Latvia, etc., so hearing about them from someone still living there would be especially exciting.

The Germans Have Another Right Approach to Life

Stop and smell the roses (house in Lübeck).

The Italians have a great phrase for what I want to talk about today: dolce far niente. It means doing sweet nothing, or the sweetness of doing nothing. Italians (and Germans, and other Europeans) know very well how sweet it is to have room to think and feel and allow the day to swirl around you. Unstructured time - even a few moments here and there - is essential for good mental health, for having a life worth living.

How many of us in North America allow ourselves that simple joy, even on our supposed time off?
After being away, I saw my own culture with new eyes. It seems that everyone here feels the need to fill time. That could be while eating a meal, riding public transport, or even driving a car. The act of being busy, of not "wasting" time, has become a social disease in the guise of a virtue. Idle thought - even while eating! - is something to avoid.
I read this recent article in the New York Times http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/, and several memories from Germany rushed back.

• People talking to each other in sidewalk cafés or restaurants, instead of sitting "alone together" as each got lost in a portable screen device;
• Almost no one walks with take-out drinks - they sit and enjoy the beverage; over here, the streets are full of hurried people with coffee to go, and I often catch people eating sandwiches or even containers of food while they're walking;
• Certain neighborhoods in Berlin and elsewhere appealed to me partially due to their proper mix of commercial and residential, which Canadian urban planning guru Jane Jacobs tried to bring to NY and Toronto more than 50 years ago; walkable neighborhoods are living communities, not just buildings and pavement.

 This relates to some of my posts in my first blog, ONLY CONNECT: mindfulness. If you have a full life, with many obligations, you certainly cannot stare out of a window for three hours, musing on the meaning of life. But you still can be mindful of whatever you do. You can make a sacrament of little pleasures, thereby making it easier to question the frantic pace of your life. It will never change unless you examine it--and it's better to do that voluntarily. No one wants to be forced to do so by circumstances outside their control (e.g., illness).
Read the article, even if you already know these things, perhaps because you're reading this from Europe or Russia or even Australia! See the comments - some real eye-openers. Many people know this "creative idleness" is a balm to the soul, while constant hamster-wheel busy-ness, very often for empty pursuits, is not really living at all. Others cling to their belief that being busy is a sign of success or self-worth.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Take a deep breath. Stop playing those video games. Check Facebook once a day instead of every hour. Filter your e-mails. Call a friend "just because." Pat that friendly dog on the street as you wait for the light to change.
Enjoy the moment!

More on the Authentic: Only in Berlin?

Armeria flowers growing on a roof

Giant, rusty key (courtyard, Mitte)

TV tower, bridge over River Spree

First cup of amazing coffee (NOT espresso)

"The recycling of packaging in Berlin saves 34,000 tons of CO2 per year. Thank you."

A piece of the Berlin Wall

In Search of the Authentic

German bread & pretzels

 One reason we travel - or I do, anyway - is to see a different side of life/the real world/"out there." I dwell in my own head perhaps more than most people, since I am not only a writer, but a writer who is partially introverted. Now and then, I need to honor the extrovert in myself, to process things from the outside in. Little is as fascinating as a gentle challenge to what my mind had settled on as "reality."
And part of reality, the real, is the site specific: local fare that does not echo the all-too familiar, that pleasing jolt that tells your brain that you are not home - and it's time to wake up and absorb every moment!
I love to note specialties particular to as small an area as possible. In a country like Italy, this is very easy. Move a few kms away from a region, and this or that food will be no longer available. In Germany, cuisine is somewhat less demarcated by state or region, but the phenomenon still exists. Overall, however, the fact that there are distinctly German foods, customs, urban planning styles, etc. etc. was enough for me to delight every time I came across an authentic experience. I cherished each one, no matter how trivial.
Part of one of my current and ongoing projects is how, exactly, to define the authentic in nature and in culture. (I'd love to hear feedback on this, publicly or privately.)
See the breads I photographed. I recognized them as bread, needless to say, because they resembled breads I had seen or even eaten in many cities across Europe and North America. Yet they bore the stamp of autheticity because they had a uniquely German aura about them. (It helped that pretzels were invented there!) Even before taking a bite, I experienced a kind of pleasure. (And the bites were very good.) Those rolls did not echo or mimic other breads. German bread seemed true to itself, and it reflected values I came to admire.

Magpies over Mitte

Then we come to the photo of magpies in flight.

CCCP Bar, Mitte

I have a fond memory of magpies from Italy 10 years ago. I tend to associate them with Europe, although the same species, Pica pica, lives in North America (not in my region).  Seeing more than one at once, and being able to take (a very long-view) photo gave me a little thrill: I'm really in Europe again after a whole decade away! You can't get birds like these back home, so I must be here!
Finally, perhaps a poor example of authenticity - a reminder of the USSR in East Berlin (CCCP is the Russian acronym). I snapped this on Rosenthalerstrasse on my very first day. Again, it told me I was away from home, I was walking in a formerly divided city that was divided by the former Soviet Union. Unique! It's authentic - even if the bar itself can be accused of pandering to the actual desire for the same.

Regrets

One of the many references to Goethe's ginkgo

One thing you have to face when going on a major trip like mine is the issue of what to leave off the itinerary. Sometimes the "triage" occurs at the planning stage, sometimes it happens when you first arrive and the scope of undertaking what you have on your wish list becomes obvious. But usually it hits later, after "stuff happens," that you cannot possibly cram everything on top of what you didn't foresee happening.
It could be a day later - after a return to a certain place is out of the question - or it could be (horrors) when you look at a travel guide and realize you didn't even know such-and-such a feature even existed: regrets set in.
I regret not seeing the botanical gardens in Berlin and elsewhere, but I'm not consumed by it. I realized, while there was still time, that seeing beautiful flowers from other countires mattered less to me than chancing upon flowers growing wild by the road. The poppy and armeria I plucked in Sachsenhausen, to press and preserve in a book, are more precious to me now than a memory of a strange orchid in a greenhouse (as lovely as that may have been).
I feel almost a guilty twinge for not looking for Goethe's ginkgo tree in Weimar, which was planted in the early 19th century. After all, he wrote a famous poem about it, and the poem seems to describe my character as much as his. http://www.wisdomportal.com/Poems2007/Goethe-Ginkgo.html But I can live with that. At least I saw the town, enjoyed its serenity, and saw the graveyard where he, Schiller, and the Goethe clan were buried (even if I couldn't find the great man's actual tomb!!).
But the greatest regret of all is failing to fufill a promise I made to myself and a dear friend, namely, that I would go to the Kumpfstichkabinet in Berlin's Kulturforum and examine some Dürer prints up close. I did go, but the special room was closed because it was Saturday. When we returned to Berlin, we didn't go back. And on the extra day we had, we went to Lübeck.
This and other regrets, small and large, become more painful when I think of how unlikely it is that I will ever be in Germany again. With that in mind, I should cherish what I did experience all the more. In life there are rarely second chances - and maybe the knowledge of that makes sweet experiences all the sweeter.
Carpe diem!

The critic remembers

Best meal (fancy): the lasagna I had for lunch at Kampinski's (Berlin); it was probably meant as an appetizer, given its modest price (8.50 euros), but it ended up being the tastiest heap of pasta, vegetables, and cheese in memory.

Best meal (simple): the falafel and sides at Dada's, on Linienstrasse, right below Friedrichstrasse, in Mitte; another Best Ever.

Best music (expensive): Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, performed by the orchestra, choir and soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic, June 3.

Best music (free): Bach's First Prelude for Unaccompanied Cello, performed in a square in Weimar by a young musician.

Freundlich katz (friendly cat)

Best music (overall): blackbirds singing, from dawn to the very late dusk.

Best animal moments: 1) the endangered white storks, feeding in a field, we viewed from the bus while travelling between Dresden and Berlin, June 5. 2) the mouse with a single stripe down his back Eddie and I saw while strolling around the garden of artist Max Lieberman in Wannsee, June 4; 3) the cat we finally met (after nearly two weeks of all-dog, no-cat streets) in Weimar, who approached shyly but ended up cavorting with us like an old friend.

Max Lieberman house & garden, Wannsee

Sebastian, Topographie des terrors

Best learning experience: Topographie des Terrors, thanks to our guide, Sebastian G.

Most beautiful interior: the church in Aachen, tied with the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig. N.B. This is a correction from the original post.

Most beautiful streets: the old, winding ones in Lübeck.

Best street with mix of commercialism, charm, walkability: Friedrichstrasse, Mitte, Berlin.

Best street with mix of commercial and residential: Tucholskystrasse, same area.

Most overrated tourist site: Brandenburg Tor.

Most touristy big city: Cologne.

Quietest tourist town: Weimar.

Best hotels: Leonardo Hotel, Weimar; Augustinenhof, Berlin.

Best museum: Cologne's Wallraf (European art from several centuries).

Perspective taking

As I promised last week, I am back this week for some reflections on my trip.

A map of Europe's Jewish population - in the house of the Wannsee Conference, where the Final Solution was drafted.

First of all, I would like to describe very briefly - perhaps unfairly so - the book I finished reading a couple of days ago. It's ALONE IN BERLIN by Hans Falluda. I bought it in Berlin, on the wonderful Friedrichstrasse, early in the trip, and I read it on and off during the second half. It certainly kept me absorbed on a several train rides and the on plane home.
Alone in Berlin was published in 1947, shortly after the author died, unfortunately. It fictionalizes a true story of two "ordinary" Germans during the war, a simple man and his wife, who decide not to lay low and keep quiet while Hitler marches all over Europe, killing innocent people (including, in the novel, the couple's only son). The novel is fascinating for several reasons. 1) it's a gripping tale of a horrible time, complete with absorbing plot, distinct and captivating characters, and well-wrought setting; 2) pathos manages to alternate with absurdity (a trait peculiar, I have found, to European literature and film); 3) the insights Falluda provides into the human condition in general - and, in particular, how people of all stripes handle war - are utterly unforgettable.
(I alos enjoyed recognizing parts of Mitte, Berlin's central neighborhood, where I walked and stayed.)
Although almost completely uneducated, Otto and his wife Anna decide to do their best to oppose the war, and that consists of spreading the word of its injustice. This they do by writing messages on postcards and leaving them around Berlin. Eventually they are caught, falling to the inevitable fate of those who dare to confront tyranny. They are convicted of treason, punishable by death.
I felt despair many times while reading; after all, it was based on a true story and the war really went on like that. At the same time, the absurdity had the effect of making it bearable, not only because it injected a welcome dose of twisted humor. The reminder that life is absurd, when you really think about it, gave me a deeper understanding of suffering. If everything is ridiculous, then how do we define tragedy? Human egos, human ambitions and vanity all seem petty and absurd - yet they are as responsible for what we call "evil" in the world as anything truly frightening, like sadism or a complete lack of empathy. What else caused the great massacres of the 20th century but exaggerated self-regard? At least one person - with the help of equally egotistical and sycophantic hangers-on - had the supreme arrogance to think his ideas could change the world for the better. His ideas and nothing but. If there is one distinguishing aspect of the despot it is a manic disdain for discussion and perspective.
Coming home from a life-changing experience, I have other kinds of perspective to ponder. But it is still important to remember that things are not always as they first (or later) appear.